


Dr. Deaton’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

by luulapants



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (very temporary) character death, Anal Sex, Car Accidents, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M, Magic, Marijuana, Oral Sex, POV Alternating, Stiles Stilinski learns a lesson, Time Loop, magical mishaps, the Sterek is not the main focus but there will be sex so stop by for that, the perils of hyperfocus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:08:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25137448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luulapants/pseuds/luulapants
Summary: Stiles acted like a dick and got himself stuck in a time loop. He's determined to make whatever personal developments are necessary to break out of it.Alan Deaton isalsostuck in this stupid time loop, and he's going to explain that to Stiles just as soon as he can track the little bastard down.In which Stiles learns a very important lesson about awareness and consideration.
Relationships: Alan Deaton & Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 112
Kudos: 292





	1. Douchenozzle

**Author's Note:**

> The ship isn't the focus of this fic, but there IS Sterek and there is going to be sex in later chapters, so I've tagged as both M/M and Gen. I am not 100% sure if this is correct, and I am open to feedback on that!

_Ding._

_Ding._

_Ding. Ding. Ding._

Stiles groaned and slapped his hand on top of his phone. Lifting it, he blinked at the screen. 7:45am. He had a flurry of notifications from various apps: Twitter, Calendar, Email, Facebook. He dismissed them all blindly and tapped to open his messages.

_Lydia: Stiles  
Lydia: Wake up  
Lydia: This is your reminder  
Lydia: That you swore you wouldn’t fuck up your sleep schedule this summer  
Lydia: Now WAKE UP_

Giving a pitiful whimper, Stiles rolled onto his back and typed a response:

_To Lydia: By not fucking up my sleep sched I meant not waking up at 2pm like maybe 10am instead_

_Lydia: You’ll thank me later. Get up._

_To Lydia: Hate u_

He dropped his phone onto his chest and glared at the ceiling for a bit before finally rolling out of bed. His dad was already at work and Scott wouldn’t be awake for another few hours – unless Lydia was torturing _him_ too – so Stiles decided to make a lazy morning of it.

He made some coffee, oatmeal with peanut butter, sliced up an apple, and settled down in the living room for some early morning video games. He had been struggling to get past a level last night, but the jittery buzz of coffee managed to get him through it. His opponent was just going down when Stiles’s phone blared,

_My boyfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble  
(Hey-la-day-la my boyfriend's back)_

“Der-bear!” he greeted, pausing the game with one hand while the other tucked his phone between his face and shoulder. “How’s the sweetest sourwolf in the whole world?”

“I guess I didn’t wake you up, then. You’re awfully chipper for this early.”

Stiles got to his feet, collecting his dishes from breakfast. “Lydia woke me up.”

“I thought she was already in London?”

“Exactly, so it's like the middle of the afternoon there. She’s on a crusade to ruin my life one healthy habit at a time.”

“Your dad would call that karma.” Stiles could hear the smirk in his tone.

“Yeah, yeah. No pity for Stiles,” he griped. “So what’s up?” He brought the dishes to the kitchen and started rinsing them.

“Are you coming over today?”

Stiles frowned. “Shit, did we – we didn’t have plans, did we?”

“No, I just figured...”

“I kinda promised Scott we’d do the first day of summer break together. We’re driving up to the arcade in Redding, eating tacos ‘til we puke – you know, summer stuff.” He put the dishes in the dishwasher and sat down at the kitchen table. “Then tonight Deaton’s letting me go over there to raid his mystical pantry.”

“Oh,” Derek said, suddenly icy. “Well. Have fun, I guess.”

Stiles frowned. “Wait, wait, what’s going on?”

“Nothing. Have fun with Scott.”

“You have a _tone_ , Derek.”

“I just – I thought we’d spend the day together is all.”

“Oh- _kay_ , well maybe you should have said something before I made other plans.” Stiles didn’t put much effort into softening the annoyance in his voice. “Look, rain check, okay? I can come over tomorrow.”

Derek huffed. “Don’t bother.”

“What! Are you serious? Derek –” But the line was dead. Stiles stared down at his phone. “Fucking unbelievable,” he muttered.

* * *

  
  


Scott showed up around eleven on his bike, and they both climbed into the Jeep to head to Redding. There was a detour for an accident, which added another thirty minutes to their trip. Still, it took about half the drive before Scott picked up on his sour mood and asked, “Alright, what’s going on?”

Stiles sighed. “Stupid fight with Derek.” When Scott didn’t say anything else, he relented and added, “I don’t even know what it was _about_ because the idiot won’t _talk_ about things. He got mad that I had plans for today – like I’m just supposed to be sitting around staring wistfully out the window waiting for him to call?”

“Dude, that’s totally not cool,” Scott agreed. “I mean, I get that you guys are kind of serious now, but he can’t just expect you to ditch the rest of your social life because you two are dating.”

“Exactly!” Stiles waved his arm in an emphatic gesture that Scott had to bat away or else get smacked in the face. “Like, okay, he doesn’t exactly have a lot in the way of friend-friends, right? He’s got pack, he’s got… ugh, god forbid _Peter_ , but that’s about it. So it’s not like his social calendar is a-rockin’, but it’s not my responsibility to fill in the rest, now, is it?”

Scott shook his head. “No way! He hasn’t exactly made an effort to make new friends, and that’s on him. I know Parrish has invited him out for drinks and Derek said no.”

“See!” Stiles exclaimed. “So not my fault. And if he expects me to be _everything_ for him...”

“It’s just totally insane,” Scott concluded. “He can’t put that on you.”

“Right,” Stiles huffed.

“Right.” Scott reached over and squeezed his shoulder.

Stiles smirked at him. “Thank you, Scotty. Your validation means the world to me.”

“Any time.”

* * *

  
  


The rest of their outing went as planned. Obscene amounts of tokens were purchased, which vanished into arcade games at an alarming rate. Then, they went to their favorite taqueria and ate until Stiles got the food sweats and Scott, with his annoying werewolf metabolism, felt completely fine.

“You okay back there, buddy?” Scott asked, glancing in the rear view mirror.

“Gnmphuh,” Stiles groaned. He lie flat across the back seat, hands clutching his stomach.

“That good, huh?”

“Scott, please delete my browsing history after I die.”

“You got it, man. And I’ll clear out that box of sex toys under your bed that I definitely don’t know about and can’t smell from a mile away.”

“You’ve always been a good friend to me,” Stiles whimpered, eyes squeezed shut. “I think I’ll miss you the most.”

“Just promise you’ll warn me before the taco farts set in. If these windows are up when it happens, I might actually drive us off the road.”

Stiles nodded weakly. “It’s gonna be bad, Scotty. However bad you think it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be so much worse.”

“Gross, dude.”

Just as he was preparing himself for his journey to the other side, a buzzing started under his butt.

_My boyfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble  
(Hey-la-day-la my boyfriend's back)_

Stiles pulled his phone out of his pocket and glared at Derek’s name on the screen. “Should I answer it?”

“I dunno, do you want to be gassy and pissed off at the same time?”

He answered. “Calling to hang up on me again?”

“How was your day with Scott.” Derek was incapable of question intonation while angry.

Stiles hummed. “You mean my totally normal social interaction without you that I am one hundred percent entitled to have?”

“I’m trying to make nice, Stiles,” Derek snapped in a decidedly not-nice tone. “Would you tone down the bitch about sixty percent?”

“Wow, you are so good at this,” Stiles snarked back. “You should be, like a professional mediator.”

“Forget it, I shouldn’t have called.”

“Now this is the part where you hang up on me again, right?”

Derek made a growly noise. “Don’t you have _anything_ to say to me about today?”

Stiles glowered at the roof of the Jeep. “Yeah, you know what? I do have something to say. Just because _you_ don’t have anyone left in _your_ life that you want to spend time with other than me doesn’t mean that I owe you all of _my_ time.”

The line went silent for a long moment. Then, strained, Derek said, “Are you finished?”

“Yeah,” Stiles snapped. He hung up.

Scott glanced back at him. “Well, that went well.”

Blowing out a noisy breath, Stiles pushed himself up to sitting. “What, you think I was too harsh?”

“I mean, you weren’t exactly making the situation _better_ , but he was being a grumpy asshole right from the start, so…” Scott shrugged. “He was being a dick, dude.”

“Yeah he was,” Stiles muttered, glaring out the windshield.

His guts gave a sudden lurch.

“Scott,” he said, “it’s time to roll down the windows.”

* * *

  
  


A somewhat prolonged detour to a rest stop meant they got back to Beacon Hills later than expected. When Stiles walked through his front door, his dad stepped out of the kitchen, blocking the doorway. He was still wearing his uniform pants, but the shirt and sidearm had already been put away. “Hey, how was the trip?”

Stiles could hear the microwave humming. “Good,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “What are you eating?”

“Just reheating some leftovers. I figured you wouldn’t be hungry.”

Sniffing the air, Stiles stalked closer, and his dad shifted to keep him from getting into the kitchen. “I smell saturated fat,” he insisted. “I smell cholesterol.”

“You don’t smell anything,” his dad insisted, putting a hand on his chest to push him back a step.

“Dad, I swear to god, if you’re eating pizza rolls again –”

“I’m an adult and I’ll eat any type of roll I like. Now, don’t you have anywhere to be?”

He did. Stiles was late for his time at Deaton’s. He backed away and pointed at his eyes, then his dad. “I’m watching you, mister.”

“Watch your feet. You’re about to –”

Stiles fell backward up the stairs.

* * *

  
  


Stiles barreled full-speed into Deaton’s office that evening, half an hour late and cooking up some truly spectacular bruises on his butt and elbows. “Hey, hey, sorry, I’m here!” he called. “Please don’t lock up yet!” He vaulted the front desk and went straight into the back room. Deaton was in his office to the side, the door open and a desk lamp on.

“Yes, come in, Stiles,” he muttered. “Please, make yourself at home.”

“I texted to let you know I was gonna be late.”

Deaton closed his laptop. “I broke my phone yesterday. Replacement comes tomorrow.”

“Alright, well, I just need to rifle through your herbs a bit, and then I’ll be out of your proverbial hair in no time,” Stiles promised. He dumped his backpack on the exam table and fished a notebook out of it.

“Make sure you put everything back where you found it,” Deaton called, getting up and walking slowly to unlock his storage closet. Inside were shelves lined with carefully labeled ingredients.

“You got it!” He flipped to the notes on the spell he was working on. It was a study aid of sorts, to help him focus. “God, you would not _believe_ the day I had,” he said. He crossed the room and went into the closet, scanning the shelves for ingredients and tucking the bottles under his arm as he went.

“How complicated is this spell, exactly?” Deaton asked, poking his head in. He had to pull it back quickly as Stiles bulldozed back out and made for the exam table.

“There’s a lot of ingredients compared to what I’ve used before, but the mechanics of the spell seem pretty straightforward,” he explained. “Herbs, focused intent, a few fancy sigils...” He waved a hand at the sigils he had sketched in his notebook. “Anyway, like I was saying. I got into this _super_ stupid argument with Derek today. He’s being completely unreasonable. Like, full-moon-level grumpy, but it is definitely a waning crescent tonight, so what’s the excuse, right?”

“Hmm.” Deaton limped to his medicine cabinet and started sifting through it.

Stiles skimmed over his notes and started carefully measuring ingredients out into a mason jar. “And, of course, he won’t tell me what the hell his problem is. Nooo, not Derek. God forbid he use actual human words to express human emotions.”

“Mhm.”

“You know, just once, I wish we could have a conversation where he actually tells me what he’s thinking without filtering it through ten levels of paranoia and insecurity? Is that too much to ask?” Stiles looked up and saw Deaton making notes on a chart on the wall next to the medicine cabinet. “It’s time to make a noise so I think you’re paying attention,” he prompted.

“Hm?” Deaton glanced back. “Oh. No, I wasn’t.”

Stiles snorted. “Wow. Alright.” He measured out the last ingredient. “Well, since you’re in such a good-manners mood tonight, then, I’ll just get out of here.” He grabbed the ingredient jars and brought them over to the closet, setting them on the shelf just inside the door.

Deaton caught him with a hand on his chest as he tried to walk back to the exam table with his stuff. “Forgetting something?” His eyes moved purposefully back toward his storage closet.

Heaving a sigh, Stiles turned back around. “Right, okay, fine. I’ll put them back _correctly.”_

“Truly, you are a tortured soul,” Deaton deadpanned, folding his arms over his chest. “Making you clean up the very rare ingredients that I let you use free of charge – I’m a beast.”

“I’m just saying,” Stiles said as he started pulling jars back down, reading the labels and placing them back in their proper places. “You’re awfully finicky for a Buddhist.” Deaton’s weird system of organization was as complex as it was stringent: ingredients were first grouped by magical property, then by material type, then ordered alphabetically.

“I’m not Buddhist, Stiles.”

Stiles looked over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “Then why are you always quoting the Buddha?”

Deaton stood over the open mason jar of herb mix, sniffing. “You don’t have to be Buddhist to study the principles and appreciate the wisdom his teachings had to offer.”

“So what are you, then?” Stiles rotated a jar so the label pointed forward. “Agnostic? Baptist? No, no – Scientologist.”

A pinch of the herb mixture between his fingers, Deaton squinted to inspect it. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I consider myself more spiritual than religious. I do align with some Taoist teachings, however. Lucky for you, Taoism is big on patience.” He winked.

Stiles clicked his tongue. “Bullying is an ugly thing, Alan.”

“Don’t call me that.” Deaton gave him a tired look. “You know, Stiles, one of the major teachings of Taoism is letting go of one’s narrow, egotistic perspective of the world, to understand that reality is very different from our skewed perceptions.” He sprinkled the pinch of herbs back into the jar. “You could stand to show a little more consideration for others.”

Stiles held his arms out wide. “I’m totally considerate! Look, I put all the ingredients away perfectly.”

Deaton crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re a perceptive young man, Stiles. Is there nothing else that you want to comment on here?”

Frowning, Stiles scanned the room. Maybe he’d spilled some ingredients on the exam table? He hadn’t knocked anything over. Finally, his eyes fell on Dr. Deaton’s feet, one of which was in a big black medical boot. “Oh. Shit, what happened?”

Deaton smirked and shook his head. He limped toward his office. “Goodnight, Stiles. Good luck with your boyfriend drama.”

* * *

  
  


Later that night, Stiles walked into his bedroom in pajamas, teeth brushed and face washed. His phone sat at the end of his bed. Staring at him. He hesitated, then picked it up and opened up his messenger.

_To Derek: Can you at least tell me what we’re fighting about? Because I honestly have no idea._

He climbed into bed and plugged in his phone. It chimed a few minutes later.

_Derek: Do you know what day it is?_

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Yes, cryptic questions – that’s exactly the sort of interpersonal communication I was asking for.” Still, he hesitated, then switched over to his calendar app. There, in the reproachful glare of his phone screen, it read:

_1 year with Derek!! <3 <3 <3_

“Oh, fuck.”

_To Derek: Shit. Shit I’m so so sorry. I am the worst. I suck._

No response came. Stiles groaned, rolled over, and closed his eyes.

* * *

  
  


_Ding._

_Ding._

_Ding. Ding. Ding._

Stiles whined as he blinked his eyes open, glaring at the phone on his nightstand. He grabbed it and glared at the screen. 7:45am. “Seriously,” he muttered.

He dismissed the mess of notifications on his screen and opened his messages.

_Lydia: Stiles  
Lydia: Wake up  
Lydia: This is your reminder  
Lydia: That you swore you wouldn’t fuck up your sleep schedule this summer  
Lydia: Now WAKE UP_

_To Lydia: Omfg are you gonna do this every morning_

_Lydia: If I have to. Now GET UP._

“Ugh, demon woman,” Stiles griped, rolling out of bed.

His dad’s bedroom door was open already. “Dad?” he called. No answer. He was supposed to be off this morning, but maybe he’d been called in. Stiles wandered down to the kitchen to look for a note on the fridge. Nothing. There wasn’t even coffee in the pot.

“Weird.”

He turned on the coffee pot, then got to work scrambling some eggs, all the while thinking about his monumental fuck-up with Derek. Stiles needed to do some serious groveling. Maybe he could orchestrate some sort of big make-up anniversary date. Something with rose petals and violin music. God, no, Derek was _so_ not the rose petals and violin music type of guy.

Stiles scowled and poked at his eggs. They were sticking to the pan and going brown around the edges.

Whatever. He’d have to do something a little more low-key, then. A little more _them._

Stiles ate, then went to the living room, figuring that some video game time would help the creative process. Settling onto the couch, he waited for the screen to load and…

“Dude, what the fuck?” he whined. All of his progress from yesterday was gone. Shifting forward, he played through the level again, a little easier this time even with the distraction of thinking about his apology. He finished it just in time to hear his phone from across the room:

_My boyfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble  
(Hey-la-day-la my boyfriend's back)  
You see him comin' better cut out on the double  
(Hey-la-day-la my boyfriend's back)_

Stiles swiped the screen frantically, pulling the phone to his ear. “Derek! Oh my god, I am so, so sorry. I suck. I am the absolute worst. I’m gonna make it up to you, okay?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. Then, slowly, Derek asked, “What did you do?”

Sighing, Stiles flopped back onto the couch. “Right, right. I should say it. I _forgot_. I forgot our anniversary. I’m the worst.”

“Oh.” Derek sounded almost surprised. Maybe he had expected Stiles to dig his heels in and defend himself or something like that. God, was he really that awful? “I mean, it’s not the end of the world.”

“It is!” Stiles sat up again, one arm flailing. “It’s a _huge_ deal, and I’m gonna make it up to you, okay? I’m coming over today and I’m bringing pizza from your favorite place and we’re gonna watch whatever boring documentary you want and I’m not even going to complain a little bit, okay? I will pay _full attention_. You can quiz me on it after!”

Derek sighed. “I don’t want to quiz you, Stiles.”

“And then! Then you are getting the blowjob of your life, mister! And you can come all over me and rub it in my skin so I smell like you.”

A pause. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I mean, I’m not going to turn that down.”

“Very gracious of you.”

“When are you coming over?”

“Any time! The whole day is completely and totally yours!”

“Lunch, then. Come over at noon.”

Stiles showered and made sure he was extra-squeaky-clean for anniversary-slash-makeup sex. He was just picking out a clean t-shirt when the doorbell rang. He frowned, ignored it.

_Ding ding ding ding!_

“Jesus, al _right_!” he yelled, pulling on the first shirt he grabbed. He hurried downstairs and yanked open the door.

Scott stood outside, wearing exactly the same clothes he’d worn the day before. “Dude, are you ready?” he asked.

Stiles squinted at him, then leaned out the door to see Scott’s bike leaned against the side of the house. “Ready for what?”

“Come on, _please_ tell me you didn’t forget,” Scott urged. “Redding? The arcade? Truly disgusting amounts of tacos?”

“Which we… were going to do today,” Stiles said slowly.

“Yes. First day of summer break, Stiles!”

His mouth dropped open slowly. Stiles turned and looked around at the inside of the house with new eyes. He looked at the Xbox. He looked at the open door to his dad’s bedroom at the top of the stairs. He lifted the sleeves of his shirt to reveal his completely unbruised elbows. “Oh my god,” he said. “Oh my _god_.”

“Stiles?”

He sprinted back upstairs and grabbed his phone. He stared at the date on the lock screen, then opened the phone and went into his messages.

His messages with Derek from last night, _gone_.

His messages with Lydia from yesterday morning, _gone_.

He opened the calendar app and saw, _1 year with Derek!! <3 <3 <3_

“OH MY GOD!” he yelled, throwing his phone back onto the bed.

Scott stood behind him. “Stiles, dude, what the hell is going on? Are you okay?”

Stiles spun around and grabbed Scott by both shoulders. “ _Groundhog’s Day_ , Scott! I’m in a _Groundhog’s Day_!”

“ _What?_ ”

“You and I went to Redding _yesterday_ , but today… today is still yesterday!”

“Stiles, that sounds completely insane. You realize that, right?”

Stiles grabbed Scott’s face in both hands. “ _You are a werewolf, Scott!_ ”

Scott stared at him for a long moment. Then, he nodded. “Right. Right, okay, so _Groundhog’s Day._ ”

* * *

  
  


Alan woke to the sound of a lawnmower right outside his bedroom window. He opened his eyes and frowned. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed carefully, he grabbed the boot at the side of the bed and strapped it onto his sprained ankle. Then, slowly hobbling to his window, he peeked through the blinds and saw his neighbor mowing the lawn in a blue-gray tank top.

“Hm.”

He looked for his phone on the nightstand only to remember that it had broken in the same fall that had nearly broken his ankle. Instead, Alan walked out to the living room and opened his laptop. The time and date displayed on the home screen.

“A time loop,” he said. “Interesting.”

* * *

“Alright, so in the movie, the curse ends when Phil stops being such a douchenozzle. Have I been a douchenozzle, Scott?” Stiles sat cross-legged on his bed, laptop in front of him with about five million tabs open related to time loops, time travel, curses, etcetera.

Scott lie on his floor, tossing a lacrosse ball into the air. “I don’t know. I don’t remember how you acted yesterday-today. What did you do?”

“Well, I did get in a fight with – oh fuck!”

“What?”

Stiles stared in horror at the time in the corner of his computer screen and clutched his head in both hands. “Fuck, it’s almost one! How did that happen?”

“You went all...” Scott waved his fingers in front of his eyes, then at the computer. “Hyperfocus.”

Climbing off the bed, Stiles grabbed his phone from his dresser and saw text notifications from Derek. “Fuck, I did it again. Yesterday – today the first – I forgot mine and Derek’s anniversary and we got in this huge stupid fight, and then I didn’t realize we were looping, and I thought I was making up for forgetting it...”

_From Derek: ETA?  
From Derek: Seriously, where are you?  
From Derek: Are you coming over?  
From Derek: I already ate, so don’t bother._

“I _am_ a douchenozzle!” Stiles lamented, raking a hand through his hair.

Scott sat up, legs sprawled out in front of him as he rolled the lacrosse ball from hand to hand. “So you acted like a dick, fucked things up with Derek, and now you’re stuck in a time loop?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Stiles chucked the phone at the bed.

“Sounds like you have to get it right with him, and then this will all clear up, don’t you think?”

“So what am I supposed to tell him?”

Scott cringed. “I mean… dude, it kinda sounds like today is fucked no matter what. Tell him something came up, you’ll make it up to him tomorrow, then let’s figure out what epic romantic gesture you’re going to make when time resets itself, yeah?”

Stiles let out a slow breath. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

* * *

  
  


Alan went through his day as identically as he could to the first time he’d lived it. He kept an eye out for anyone or anything different, even a little bit. Nothing seemed out of place until that evening. Stiles had been late the first time. This time, he didn’t show up at all.

Without his phone, he couldn’t text to see _why_ Stiles hadn’t made it. Maybe something had happened to him this time through, some change outside of Alan’s sphere that had caused him to not be able to make it. Or maybe Stiles was in this loop also and that spell he’d been working on backfired.

Checking the clock a third time, Alan got up and pulled on his coat.

He got to the Stilinski house a little before nine. Stiles’s Jeep was gone, but Scott’s bike was leaned against the side of the house.

* * *

  
  


Stiles spread his arms wide, head tilted back as he sucked in a lungful of warm night air. “So what do you think about the grand finale?” he asked. Ahead of him, all of Beacon Hills lay open in the dimming light of dusk, house lights coming on one by one as the sun disappeared below the horizon.

“This is perfect, dude,” Scott said. He sat on the hood of the Jeep, glazed eyes glowing red in the night. “It’s so romantic _I’d_ make out with you.”

Stiles turned and grinned at him. “That’s so sweet.”

Scott took a hit off his pipe, wincing at the harsh burn of weed and wolfsbane.

Grabbing his own pipe, Stiles sat down next to him and took another hit. Once it went down, he said, “I can’t believe I was a big enough dick to get _Groundhog’s_ ’d.”

“You’re not usually that big a dick,” Scott assured him.

“No?”

“No way. You just, you know – you get in your head a little sometimes.” Scott reached over and ruffled his hair, then dropped an arm around his shoulders.

“Thanks, Scotty.” Stiles dropped his head onto Scott’s shoulder. “You know, I really do love him.”

“I know, buddy.”

* * *

  
  


The sheriff knocked on Alan’s window. He was in sweats and a t-shirt, barefoot. Alan rolled down the window.

“You know, not that I don’t enjoy our visits, but what the hell are you doing in my driveway?”

Alan smiled. “Sorry. You haven’t seen Stiles today, have you?”

“He left a note, said he’d be out with Scott all night.” Noah crossed his arms over his chest. “Should I be worried?”

Huffing a small laugh, Alan shook his head. “No, I guess not. Nothing that can’t wait until morning.”

“Well, then, respectfully...”

Alan lifted a hand in a wave. “I’m gone. Have a nice night, Noah.”

* * *

  
  


“I’m gonna, like, disappear,” Scott said, staring at the time on his phone. Nearly midnight.

“That’s so weird to think about,” Stiles agreed. He felt hazy, shoulders melting back against the Jeep. “Am I gonna sober up exactly at midnight?”

“Probably.” One of Scott’s arms flopped over and hit him in the stomach. “Dude, you could drink as much as you want and not get hungover.”

Stiles frowned. “When you disappear, do you think it’s like… like you’re losing your memory? Or, I mean, isn’t it a little bit like you’re dying?”

Scott went quiet for a long moment. Finally, he said, “That’s kinda fucked up.”

“Yeah.”

“At least we don’t have to worry about driving home, though.”

“Yeah.”


	2. Romancer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles tries to fix the time loop by fixing things with Derek. Deaton tries to track down Stiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey, there's sex in this one.

_Ding._

_Ding._

_Ding. Ding. Ding._

Stiles sucked in a harsh breath as he startled awake. He groped for his phone on the nightstand, cleared his notifications, and stared blearily at the screen.

_Lydia: Stiles  
Lydia: Wake up  
Lydia: This is your reminder  
Lydia: That you swore you wouldn’t fuck up your sleep schedule this summer  
Lydia: Now WAKE UP_

_To Lydia: Thank youuuu!!_

Because today? Today, Stiles was on a mission. A mission of _love._

* * *

  
  


Alan woke to the sound of a lawnmower right outside his bedroom window. He sat up, got the boot on his foot, and hobbled to the window to verify that it was the same neighbor, same shirt. Everything the same. He couldn’t waste time today. Stiles was a notoriously late riser – Scott mentioned it frequently – so it should be a simple thing to go to the Stilinski house in the morning and catch him before he left.

* * *

  
  


Stiles arrived at Derek’s loft just before nine, kicking on the door since his hands were full. On the other side, he heard Derek calling, “Stiles, did you lose your key?” The door slid open, revealing his his boyfriend in all of his sweaty, shirtless glory.

His brain took a second to reboot before he flipped open the lid of the box in his hands and announced, “I brought _pastries_!”

Derek lifted an eyebrow at him, but his lip curled in pleasure as he lowered the lid back down to inspect the top. “Isn’t this the new bakery that’s too pretentious for normal humans to visit?”

“Well, we’re not exactly normal, are we?”

Stiles ducked around him into the apartment. The sparse furniture had been pushed aside, so clearly he had been in hyper-intense exercise mode. “If you’re not done with the workout, I’m happy to sit and watch,” he insisted.

Derek snorted. “Oh, I know you are.”

Stiles flopped down lengthwise on the couch. “Come on, you don’t wanna do even one _eeny-weeny_ push-up for me?” he goaded.

“Is that what you want?” Derek crossed the room and stepped onto the arm of the couch, then fell forward so he caught himself in a plank right over Stiles. Slowly, he bent his arms until their lips just barely brushed together, then pushed back up.

Stiles’s mouth went dry. “Yup, that really does it for me,” he agreed, breathless. He trailed a hand down Derek’s chest, chewing on his lower lip as his mind produced endless lists of things he wanted to do to this man. “Can you hold this position?” he asked.

Derek rolled his eyes. “Yes, Stiles. It’s a plank, I can hold a –”

“Great, hold it, then.” Stiles leaned up to peck Derek’s lips, then started wriggling down the couch underneath him. His plan wasn’t as logistically sound as his brain had originally suggested it would be, and Derek had to spread his legs so that Stiles could fit his own between them, knees hooked over the arm of the couch. It put him gloriously head-level with Derek’s crotch, though, and he leaned up to mouth at Derek through his shorts.

“I’m gross and sweaty,” Derek protested, looking down at him between his arms.

“I _know_ ,” Stiles groaned, nuzzling his face against Derek’s bulge as it plumped up for him. Maybe it was weird – okay, no, it was _definitely_ weird – but the sweat sort of did it for him. Maybe he spent too much time around werewolves (yes, fine, he _definitely_ spent too much time around werewolves) and he had picked up their weird scent kinks. He tugged Derek’s shorts and boxers down just enough to pull his cock free, then started dragging his tongue over it, sucking kisses along the length.

“Stiles,” Derek gritted out, shifting around above him.

Stiles glanced up and saw Derek’s head bowed low, eyes squeezed shut. “You said you could hold a plank,” he reminded him.

“Stop fucking around and suck me,” Derek gritted out.

“ _Bossy_ ,” Stiles accused with more than a hint of delight. He did as he was told, taking Derek into his mouth and groaning as obnoxiously loudly as he could around him.

Derek made a choking noise. If his claws weren’t already digging into the cushions, they would be soon.

Stiles bobbed his head up, though it took a bit more neck muscle than he had bargained for. He had to grab Derek’s butt for stability and moral support. He let it get messy, slurping and choking a little, as filthy as he could make it because, even if he was too embarrassed to admit it out loud, _that_ was what really did it for Derek. He loved to see Stiles wrecked.

Derek’s hips lowered in a spasm of a thrust, and Stiles had to back off. Looking up, he saw that Derek’s arms were quivering, hands clenched hard on the cushion. “Sorry,” he panted.

Stiles pulled off. “Just surprised,” he said, voice raw. “You can fuck my mouth if you want.”

Making a truly devastated groan, Derek dropped onto one forearm and reached down with the other to cup the back of Stiles’s head, guiding him back to his task. This time, he held Stiles steady while he rocked down in shallow thrusts. “Oh, fuck. Fuck, Stiles,” he groaned.

With his hands freed up, Stiles undid the fly of his jeans, relieving the aching pressure and giving his cock some much-needed friction through the fabric. Staring up, he saw Derek’s nostrils flare, his eyes open.

“Fuck, are you –?”

Stiles moaned in affirmation around him and shoved a hand into his own underwear. It wasn’t going to take him long, not with the heavy weight of Derek’s cock grinding into his tongue and the choked-off grunts slipping from his lips.

Soon, he heard, “Fuck, I’m...” and Stiles pulled off and wrapped a hand around Derek’s cock, jerking him quickly. With his eyes closed, he felt the hot drip of come on his face first, then Derek’s low, drawn-out groan.

“Yeah,” Stiles panted, tugging his own cock faster, rougher. “God, Derek, I fucking love that. Love you. Fuck. _Fuck!_ ”

* * *

  
  


The Stilinski house was completely empty: no Stiles, no sheriff. Alan got back into his car and frowned at the time displayed over his dashboard. Nine o’clock. Apparently Stiles had gotten an early start to his day before this all started. Alan had slept in until eight, groggy from the pain meds for his ankle. It was a twenty minute drive from his house to Stilinski’s, and it took him a damn long time to get around with the boot on. There wasn’t much hope for getting here earlier.

“Damn it, Stiles,” he muttered, starting the engine back up. He would try Scott’s next, see if he had any idea where his friend might have gone.

* * *

  
  


When Stiles came out of the bathroom, he saw that Derek had opened the pastry box again and was staring into it, brows pinched. “What?”

“Stiles, there are thirteen pastries in here.”

Stiles shrugged. “Yeah, it’s called a baker’s dozen.”

“I know that,” Derek agreed, “but whenever you get donuts, you always eat one on the way here and then pretend you just got a normal dozen.”

“What!” Stiles squeaked in indignation. “I do – why, how dare you – and frankly, I am insulted by the – you have no evidence of that!”

Derek narrowed his eyes and set the box on the coffee table. “What did you do?” he growled.

Stiles gaped, a hand coming to clutch at his chest. “Why would you assume I did something! Can’t a guy get his boyfriend some sugary goodness for their one-year anniversary?”

Surprise overtook Derek’s face all at once, then fell into a soft expression. He crossed the few feet between them, caught Stiles’s face between his hands, and kissed him with the sort of furious intensity that would have made Stiles’s younger self cream his jeans.

When they parted, Stiles grinned up at him. “What, you thought I’d forget?”

Derek ducked his head. “Sorry. It’s just… _I_ forgot. I can’t believe I...”

Stiles frowned, because that couldn’t be right. Derek had been yelling at him for two Groundhog’s Days about forgetting their anniversary. “But what did – Derek, you knew it was today, right?”

“No.” Derek rubbed a hand over his face and stepped back. “Sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t even think...” He stepped in again and pecked Stiles on the lips. “This is really sweet. Thank you.”

 _What in the ever-loving fuck_?

His brain actually _hurt_ from trying to cobble together some sort of sense from this. “Then why did you…?” Stiles walked to the couch and sat, trying to think of a way to ask that made some sort of sense. He looked up at Derek, who was starting to take on a kicked puppy expression. “What were you… planning to do today?” he ventured.

Derek shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts and stared at the floor. “I mean, I sort of thought we would just hang out, since it’s… God, I didn’t even think that this would be the same day.”

“That _what_ would be the same day?” Stiles pleaded.

“Stiles, don’t you remember how we got together last year?”

Stiles scoffed, offended that the thought he would forget. “Of course! I came over here because you were being all anti-social because –” His jaw clicked shut.

It had been the weekend before the last week of school for seniors, which was pretty much a blow-off week anyway. Finals were finished, AP tests graded, graduation gowns ordered. The whole pack had planned a big party in Scott’s backyard, but Derek didn’t show up. When Stiles asked, Isaac mentioned in a hushed tone that Derek didn’t feel like partying because it was the anniversary of the fire.

“Oh shit,” Stiles whispered. He touched his fingers to his lips. “Oh, god, I’m _still_ a douchenozzle.”

“It’s okay,” Derek insisted quickly. “I hadn’t even thought about how this would be our anniversary and _the_ anniversary, and it’s – I’m sorry, that’s really shitty.” He rubbed at the back of his neck.

Stiles got up and waved his arms frantically as if he could physically banish the guilt from the air. “Hey, hey, hey! No! That’s so not your fault! Look, we can celebrate our anniversary a different day, alright? We can celebrate our first real date or something.”

“Do _you_ remember when our first real date was? Because I don’t.”

Stiles frowned. “Shit. No, me neither.” He chewed on his lip. “We could just pick a day we like? Come on, you don’t have to feel guilty that you don’t want to celebrate today.”

A humorless laugh fell from Derek’s lips. “Honestly, it probably would be a good distraction,” he conceded, “but I really don’t want our anniversary to be about that.”

Suddenly, the small gap between them seemed like an unbearable abyss, so Stiles closed it and wrapped his arms around Derek’s middle, kissed his nose. “Relax, okay? Today can be about whatever you want it to be about.” After a bit of nuzzling and cajoling, he managed to get Derek to lift his face so they could kiss for real. “Hey. What do you say we pack up our pastries and go for a drive today? I’ll turn off my phone, you turn off your brain. We can go out to the coast, catch some sun.”

“I thought your ‘beautiful, delicate skin’ was never to ‘feel the wrath of sunlight’ again?” Derek teased.

“Don’t hold me accountable for what sunburned Stiles says. Come on. Beach day?”

Derek nodded, then leaned in to bump their noses together. “Beach day.”

* * *

  
  


“Well, there’s a wasted day,” Alan muttered, glaring at the sheriff’s squad car in the darkening driveway.

Scott sat in the driver’s seat – he took over when Alan’s ankle started to ache – and shook his head. “I seriously have no clue where else he and Derek could be. We’ve been to Derek’s three times, we’ve been here more times than that, the station, the preserve. No one in the pack has heard from him – I even had plans with him today.”

“Chances are, he’s been through those plans with you at least once,” Alan reminded him.

“Right, but for him to not even text me to cancel?”

Alan shrugged. “It’s not like you’ll still be upset about it tomorrow.”

Scott frowned. “That’s shitty.” Then he looked over at Deaton and quickly added, “Sorry.”

Smirking, Alan assured him, “You’re nineteen, Scott. I think you’re allowed a curse word every week or so.”

“That’s the only one I get all week?”

“And who knows how long this week will be.”

Scott grinned and waved a finger at him. “No, no! If time loops around and I forget everything, my count goes back to zero.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Alan teased back. “I think you just used up your one curse word, and now all of the other timeline versions of you don’t get any.”

They both laughed quietly, then looked at the Stilinski house again. Scott drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Man, I wonder where he is?”

* * *

  
  


“You are _so_ sunburned,” Derek laughed, leaning over to kiss a pink shoulder.

“Hey,” said Stiles, “not like I’ll have to worry about it tomorrow.”

They settled back into the sand, both staring at the stars above them. Derek caught Stiles’s hand and tangled their fingers together. “So you really think you’re going to loop back around again tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “I think I just have to keep re-living this day until I’m less of a dick.”

“Today was great,” Derek argued. “A distraction was exactly what I needed.”

Stiles snorted. “We had a weird awkward fight, like, first thing.”

“No, you sucked my brain out of my dick first thing.” Derek rolled his head to the side to grin at Stiles. “And that wasn’t even really a fight. It was just, you know, messy feelings.”

“I’m sorry I forgot about the anniversary,” Stiles whispered.

Derek pulled their joined hands to his lips and kissed Stiles’s knuckles. “I’m sorry I forgot _our_ anniversary. But just because you were on the wrong track at the start doesn’t mean today didn’t turn out perfectly. If the point of this thing is that you’re supposed to fix things with me, then I bet it’s over.”

“God I hope not – this sunburn is gonna suck.”

Derek laughed, lips still pressed to his hand. “Well, I hope I don’t forget today. And I’ll rub aloe on you if tomorrow is a new day.”

Stiles leaned over and kissed Derek’s knuckles in return. “If it’s not a new day… what do you think about me just keeping you busy, distracted? I could take you to Redding with me and Scott, buy you tacos. It would probably be better than blowing him off like I did today.”

“Alright,” Derek agreed. “If the day starts over, take me to Redding.”

A wind swept up across the beach, and Stiles shivered. He rolled to the side and pressed against Derek, face pressed to his chest. “Can we just stay here?” he asked. “Until midnight?”

A warm arm wrapped around his shoulders, holding him close. “Of course.”

* * *

  
  


_Ding._

_Ding._

_Ding. Ding. Ding._

Stiles opened his eyes slowly. His heart ached. His bed felt empty. Opening the messages on his phone, he let his eyes slide over the familiar messages.

_Lydia: Stiles  
Lydia: Wake up  
Lydia: This is your reminder  
Lydia: That you swore you wouldn’t fuck up your sleep schedule this summer  
Lydia: Now WAKE UP_

_To Lydia: I’m up_

* * *

  
  


Alan _had_ to find Stiles today. Clearly, Stiles had been trying different things day-to-day, and he had woken up early enough that Alan couldn’t rely on catching him first thing. In the course of an entire day, Stiles could get pretty much anywhere, and who knew what was going through his head that had him scampering off the map instead of coming to the clinic for help.

Or maybe he had, predictably, forgotten that Alan’s phone was broken, tried calling it, then gave up.

With Stiles, the latter was unfortunately likely.

Despite his failings the previous day, he went to the Stilinski house first with no luck. The day before, he had wasted some precious time, getting breakfast and then going to Scott’s, only to find that Scott had just left for Stiles’s.

Since Scott had been around and Derek had disappeared last time, Alan figured that should be his second stop. While it didn’t give him Stiles, it did confirm the same pattern as yesterday: Derek’s car at his loft, but no Derek. On a whim, Alan got out of his car in the parking lot of Derek’s building and slowly paced down the length of the parking stalls.

A glisten of motor oil on the pavement caught his eye. Alan smiled. Stiles had been there, recently.

Alan went to the McCall house next. Scott had mentioned waking up at ten, which meant he should have had time to catch him before he took off for Stiles’s house on his bike. However, when he arrived, he found drips of motor oil, no Stiles.

Groaning in frustration, Alan limped back down the driveway to his car. It almost felt like Stiles was deliberately trying to avoid him, but what possible motive could he have for that? What the hell was this kid up to?

* * *

  
  


“Ugh, you’re way too attractive,” Stiles whined, draping himself over Derek’s back dramatically.

“I lost,” Derek pointed out, gesturing at the screen of the shooter game, which had, indeed, declared Scott the winner.

Stiles groped his arms shamelessly. “But you with a gun is just, unbearably hot, so I’m the real winner here,” he insisted.

Scott, leaning against the machine and grinning, said, “As the son of an always-armed law enforcement official, you should probably analyze that at a later time.”

Stiles clapped his hands over Derek’s ears. “You’re awful.”

“You love me.”

“You’re _awful._ ”

Derek knocked his hands away and offered up the plastic gun. “Here, you play him.”

Stiles stepped back, holding his hands up as if unwilling to so much as touch the gun. “No, no, no. I am not up to the humiliation of competing with the preternatural speed and agility. Come on.” He walked down the line of games and stopped with his arms wide once he had found his destination. “ _Street Fighter_ : the great equalizer.”

“I can still push the buttons faster than you,” Derek said, lifting an eyebrow.

Scott groaned. “Yeah, but Stiles actually knows all of the button combos and moves. He’s spent, like, stupid amounts of time on this game. Go on, just let him beat you and get it over with.”

Derek stepped up to the game and Stiles crowed in preemptive victory.

* * *

  
  


Alan supposed the sheriff probably thought he didn’t need home security because, well, who would be stupid enough to break into the sheriff’s house?

Who indeed.

The door into the garage was unlocked, which gave him the privacy to take his time picking the lock from the garage into the main house. Alan knelt awkwardly at the door, his boot poking out behind him, pressing his ear to the wood just above the deadbolt. A final triumphant click sounded, and he carefully held the pin in place while he turned the lock, the bolt sliding safely into the door. He let out a breath.

“Sorry about this, Noah,” he murmured as he pulled the door open, “but I don’t have time to ask for an invitation.”

He had only been inside the Stilinski house once before, when Noah invited him over for a coffee and to get his opinion on some cases that might be “his kind of thing.” In the intervening two years, the house hadn’t changed much. They had gotten a new refrigerator, he thought as he passed through the kitchen, and maybe they had gotten a few more decorative fish to hang on the wall, but certainly not less.

Did either of them even fish?

Alan headed upstairs, poking his head into the Sheriff’s room before finding Stiles’s at the end of the hall. If one ignored a few details, it looked much like any young man’s room looked: messy with old childhood trophies on a bookshelf, comic books and action figures. Of course, the details needing ignoring included a giant cork board covered in newspaper clippings of suspicious reports from surrounding areas, connected by strings with little scraps of paper that said things like, _Wendigo? Kelpie?_ There was also the stack of aging magic books on the desk, the jar of mountain ash on the windowsill, and the rather suspect claw marks on the headboard of his bed.

He went to the desk, quickly locating the notebook that Stiles had brought to the clinic before the looping began. Alan hadn’t gotten a good look at it that night, but he could rule out other pages of notes as he leafed through. Banishing spells, locating spells, measures of intent, spells to encourage pack unity – most of these were very mild, low power and low risk.

The notebook dropped open to a hastily scrawled list of ingredients next to a series of Egyptian hieroglyphs. At the top of the page, Stiles had written, _Improve Focus/Learning_.

Alan wasn’t particularly familiar with Egyptian hieroglyphs or spellwork. Neither, to his knowledge, were Peter or Lydia, which was why he decided this must be the one. Because if none of them had taught these hieroglyphs to Stiles, that meant he’d learned it on the internet. And _that_ was a recipe for magical mishaps. He tore the page from the notebook, folded it into his pocket, then slipped out of the house as fast as he could limp.

* * *

  
  


“You two go ahead,” Scott said, waving them toward the ferris wheel.

“What? No, you can come with us,” Derek insisted, tugging on Scott’s elbow.

Stiles leaned against Derek’s shoulder, grinning at Scott. “Yeah, we promise we won’t even smooch that much when we get to the top.”

Scott shrugged off Derek’s hand. “Seriously. I’m gonna go win a stuffed animal for Kira or something. You two go make with the smooching.” He turned and headed for the game booths.

“Love you, buddy!” Stiles called after him.

As they stood in line for the ferris wheel, Derek wrapped an arm around his shoulders and looked toward Scott. “I feel bad,” he said. “I know it was supposed to be your day just the two of you.”

Stiles snuggled in against his side. “Scott doesn’t mind, seriously. I think he actually likes getting the chance to hang out with you like this. You know, when nothing evil is trying to kill us.”

“Nothing besides taco overconsumption, you mean.”

The ride attendant waved them forward to the next car, and they slipped inside. Stiles sniffed as he settled onto his seat. “I’ll have you know, my taco consumption today was downright moderate.”

“I’d hate to see what it looks like when you really let loose.”

The car rose slowly away from the flickering lights of the amusement park, the music of the games fading away below them. Derek leaned in closer, pressing his forehead to Stiles’s temple. He breathed in slowly, the way he did when he was letting himself just enjoy Stiles’s scent.

Stiles turned his head and pressed their lips together, quick and light. Derek’s eyes opened, their impossible mix of colors glinting in the lights of the ferris wheel. Stiles had to ask: “Was today a good day?” Had Derek been able to forget about the anniversary, even for a little while?

Derek nodded, kissed him again. “It was a perfect day,” he whispered, and Stiles could hear the ache in his voice, knew what it felt like to seek refuge from grief only to find guilt in the absence of pain.

Cupping Derek’s face in his hands, Stiles bumped their noses together. “That was the point, Der. It was supposed to be a good day. It’s okay to have a good day.”

“I love you so much,” Derek said, his voice cracking.

They kissed slowly, just enjoying the closeness without any real urgency or hunger behind it. By the time they broke apart, they had already started to descend on the other side of the ferris wheel, having missed the top. Stiles glanced down at the ground to see that there wasn’t much of a line.

“Let’s go around another time,” he suggested.

* * *

  
  


Alan glanced at the clock again, its arms ticking menacingly closer to midnight, then back down at the book in front of him. He shook his head and sighed. “Oh, Stiles, what did you do?”

On one side of his desk, he had Stiles’s hieroglyphs spread out. On the other, a tome of hieroglyphic translations. It was hard to tell if the spell was working as intended, in which case Stiles had misinterpreted it in the first place, or if he had accidentally altered the spell through mistranslation, and this had been the result.

In any case, it seemed as though the hieroglyph for ‘school’ had been altered so that the symbol for ‘house/building’ had been replaced with the symbol _shen_ , meaning ‘infinity.’

Alan traced a finger over the _shen_ and frowned. A schoolhouse constructed of infinite time.

“And when do you get to leave the schoolhouse?” Alan wondered aloud, eyes lifting to the clock once more. 11:59, the second hand sailing around the face. His eyes narrowed in thought. “When you’ve learned the lesson,” he concluded.

* * *

  
  


Alan woke to the sound of a lawnmower right outside his bedroom window.


	3. Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek suggests that Stiles needs to focus on the bigger picture to get out of the time loop. Alan gets some help in his search.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for car crashes this chapter.
> 
> So I originally planned to have this done by the end of August, but OOF August was just GONE all the sudden, wasn't it??
> 
> Anyway, the last chapter should be up within 2-3 weeks. Thanks for your patience!

Alan needed a real game plan. Stiles was wildly varying his movements from day-to-day, and had gotten an earlier start on his day than Alan. That meant, at the very least, he needed some backup.

Stiles had snatched Scott up from under him the previous morning, but Deaton hadn’t gotten there until nearly ten. This morning, he got ready as quickly as he could hobble about, and went directly to Scott’s.

“Alan,” Melissa greeted, smiling. The smile immediately dropped into something quietly restrained. “Scott wasn’t supposed to be at work this morning, was he?”

“No, no,” he assured her. “Scott’s not in any trouble. I do, unfortunately, need to wake him up to speak with him, though. It’s time sensitive.”

“Of course,” she agreed, holding open the door. “Is this something I should be worried about?”

Alan tipped his head to the side thoughtfully, and decided on, “Not today, at least.” He limped in through the door.

“What happened to your foot?” Melissa asked, offering him a hand.

“I fell and sprained my ankle yesterday,” he explained. “I broke my phone, too, or I would have called ahead.”

Melissa detoured him over to the living room instead of the stairs. “Here, you have a seat and get off of that. I’ll go wake him up.”

“Thank you,” Alan agreed. He sat on the couch, propping his foot up on the coffee table. Idly, he imagined that Stiles would burst in the door, stopping by to collect Scott like he had the day before. No such luck. Instead, a pajama-clad and sleep-addled Scott descended the stairs a few minutes later, Melissa at his back.

“Hey, Dr. Deaton,” Scott greeted. “What’s going on?”

“Do you want coffee?” Melissa asked.

“Yes, please,” Deaton agreed. “Scott, have a seat. I have a little situation I need to explain to you.”

He ended up explaining the time loop to the both of them, Melissa hovering nearby and huffing, “ _Groundhog’s Day_. Now I’ve heard everything.”

* * *

  
  


Stiles kicked repeatedly at Derek’s door, yelling, “Hey, stop working out! I brought food!”

On the other side, he heard, “Stiles, did you lose your key?” The door slid open. “And how did you know –” Derek froze, eyebrows shooting up as he took in the mountains of bags in Stiles’s arms.

He had bought all of the pastries he hadn’t gotten from the fancy bakery last time, plus the almond croissants Derek had liked best. And, while he was on Main Street, he’d stopped for a few more things: fudge and caramel popcorn from the pharmacy, breakfast sandwiches and lattes from a cafe, crepes from a food truck, breakfast burritos from a Mexican place, and a box of fancy chocolates.

“Stiles...” Derek said slowly. “I thought we agreed that maxing out your credit card isn’t a cute hobby?”

Stiles shoved the drinks and one of the bags – the burritos – into Derek’s hands. “Doesn’t matter,” he declared. “The money will be back in my account tomorrow. What’s it matter?” He charged inside and set the rest down on the table.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Derek closed the door.

Looking around at the shifted furniture, Stiles realized that the frantic workout he’d interrupted was probably self-distraction. From the death and mourning and such. “Shit,” he muttered, turning back to Derek. “Sorry! Sorry.” He grabbed Derek’s face in both hands and planted a smooch on his face. “I know today sucks and it should just get to be your day or a distraction day or something, but I really need your help with something.”

Derek stared at him like he had a second head, but nodded and moved to the couch. He set the bags down. “I can tell. Alright, what’s up?”

Stiles grabbed a piece of fudge and one of the lattes. “Dig in,” he insisted as he sat down. His mouth was full the entire time as he recounted his time loop struggles, leaving out none of the nasty details: their fight, him blowing Derek off on the second day, that he had forgotten about both their anniversary and _the_ anniversary. He explained their wonderful day at the beach, then the day in Redding.

The fancy chocolates had a lot of fruit fillings, which Stiles never liked the texture of, so he ended up giving Derek a bunch of pieces that he’d bitten into. Derek didn’t try to cut in through the entire monologue, just ate pastries and reject chocolates and listened.

“So that’s pretty much the situation,” Stiles sighed. “I mean, I feel like yesterday was good, you know? Like, _really_ good, considering… but that’s sort of the problem. No matter what we do, it’s still going to be a shitty day for you because it’s just a shitty day, right? So I guess… I mean, I just don’t know how to make you happy on the worst day of the year.”

Derek set down his latte and leaned back against the cushions. His brow pinched together in thought as he directed one of his more intense brainiac expressions at Stiles. Finally, he said, “Have you considered that you’re paying way too much attention to me in all of this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you just assumed this whole thing was about our fight. Why?”

Stiles shifted in his seat, frowning as the sugar rush threatened to take down his higher thinking powers. “I mean, that’s how these things work, isn’t it? I did a big, douchenozzle thing, and now I have to fix it. Right? It’s not like anything else weird happened that day.”

Derek snorted. “You and me fighting isn’t weird.” When Stiles looked up, there was a lopsided little grin twisted in Derek’s lips. “I mean, first of all, it doesn’t sound like you were _that_ much of a douchenozzle. You forgot a date, and I didn’t communicate clearly.”

It was strange to hear how Derek, given the perspective of Stiles’s recollection, could so clearly identify his own missteps. He would probably have been out of the stupid time loop in two days, tops.

“You were _really_ mad at me, though,” Stiles insisted.

Derek shrugged a shoulder. “It’s a pretty emotional day for me. Anyway, I don’t think it’s a big enough deal to trap you in a time loop.” He reached out, grabbing Stiles by the elbow and reeling him in against his chest. He was sweaty, but Stiles snuggled in anyway. Derek said, “We get into a stupid fight, like, once a month. Minimum. It’s probably a complete coincidence.”

“Well, then, what the hell _am_ I supposed to do?” he sighed, nuzzling in against Derek’s neck.

“You’re thinking too small-scale,” Derek told him, nudging his face back so he could look him in the eye. “Stiles, you’ve been given, like, cosmic-level powers here. You basically know the future one day in advance. Have you tried listening to the news or anything?”

Hadn’t Deaton said something like that to him? That he had too narrow a view on things? Stiles shook his head. “I guess I never really thought about it.”

Derek gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Well, that’s where I would start. You want some help?”

“Actually,” Stiles said as he sat up, “I have something else you could help me with.” Because even if this wasn’t specifically about him acting like a dick, that didn’t mean he should douche it up with impunity. “I need you to Scott-sit for me today, if that’s cool?”

It would take care of both of them, freeing him up to start a larger investigation.

“Sure,” Derek agreed. “He can help me with the mountain of food on the coffee table.”

Stiles pulled his phone out of his pocket and shot off a quick text:

_To Scott: Hey gotta bail today. Magic type issue but I got it. Can u come keep Derek company? Its the anniv of the fire n also I brought a ton of food here u can eat._

“So what are you gonna do?” Derek asked.

Stiles set his phone down on the couch as he leaned forward for a kiss. “About my cosmic power? Not sure yet,” he said against Derek’s lips. “About you?” He hummed, then shifted down onto the floor between Derek’s knees. “Well, I should probably still pamper you. Just in case.”

Derek licked his lips, an eyebrow creeping upward. He lifted his hips as Stiles’s fingers curled into the waistband. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Probably best to be safe.”

* * *

  
  


“Alright,” Scott reasoned. “I guess the first thing to try is just texting Stiles? Man, what a lousy day to not have a phone.”

Alan huffed in agreement and sipped down the last of his coffee.

“I’ll go grab mine. Hopefully he answers and we can get this sorted out.” Scott headed upstairs and returned a few minutes later, frowning at his phone as he came downstairs. “Shit,” he said, then looked up at Alan and his mom, startled. “I mean –”

“It’s fine,” Alan assured him quickly. “Did he text you?”

“Yeah, he asked if I could go hang out with Derek today because he has to take care of a ‘magic type issue.’” Scott came back into the living room and sat on the arm of the chair. He lifted the phone to his ear. He waited, then scowled. “No answer,” he muttered. He tapped at the screen and lifted the phone again. This time, his eyebrows lifted. Scott opened his mouth to talk, then stilled, cut off by the voice on the other end of the line.

“Is he there?” Alan pressed, leaning forward. The idea that Stiles was just on the other end of that phone call, within his reach, began to settle a simmering frustration that had been building for three days.

Scott said, “I’m putting you on speaker. Deaton’s here.” He lowered the phone.

Instead of Stiles’s voice, it was Derek’s that filled the living room. “Deaton? Why are you at Scott’s?”

“Derek, where is Stiles?” Deaton asked, tone more demanding than he had intended.

“I don’t know. He left about fifteen minutes ago and forgot his phone here,” Derek explained. “What’s going on?”

“Did he tell you about the time loop?” Deaton asked.

“ _You_ know about the time loop?” Derek asked.

“I’m _in it_.”

There was a long pause, a bit of movement audible through the line, and then, “Oh, shit.”

“Derek, do you have any idea where he might have gone?” Deaton pressed.

“I might have...” Derek sighed. “I think I sent him off on a mission to save the world.” More shuffling noises came over the phone, and then Derek said, “Where are you? I’m coming over.”

“We’re at my house,” Scott said. “Hey, can you bring the food Stiles mentioned?”

“Scott!” Melissa snapped.

“What?” Scott held an arm out. “I haven’t had breakfast yet!”

* * *

  
  


Stiles figured he probably wasn’t going to be able to do much about things that happened on the other side of the country or world or anything like that. Even if he could call in a tip to the FBI about something that was going to go down, who the hell would believe him?

Instead, he breezed through the front doors of the Sheriff’s station, ready to bribe his dad with lunch and grill him about the day’s events for the surrounding counties.

“He’s not here,” said Deputy Mitchell from her desk. She barely lifted her eyes to look at him before turning back to the paperwork in front of her.

“My dad?” Stiles said, glancing around the mostly-empty station.

“Your dad, Parrish, whoever you’re looking for? They’re not here,” she said flatly, her fingers still clacking over her keyboard. “It’s just me and...” Deputy Mitchell looked toward the break room. Through the door, Stiles could see another deputy slumped over the break table, head pillowed on his arms. “...Saraceno,” she concluded, frowning.

“Where the hell is everyone?” he asked, heart beating a little faster. He hadn’t even seen his dad since the first day, before things started looping around, and that had been for all of two minutes before he took off for Deaton’s. Something must have happened this morning. Something big.

Mitchell leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest. “Eleven car pileup on the interstate,” she told him. “Including a semi. The whole road is blocked off. All hands on deck.”

“Except you, who got stuck here babysitting,” Stiles concluded. He glanced up. “And Saraceno.”

“You got it.”

Stiles bounced on his heels, thinking the situation over. Obviously it was too late to stop the accident today, but he could learn as much as he could about the accident as he could and be ready to stop it for the next loop. This was it.

He glanced at his dad’s office, then back at Deputy Mitchell. There wouldn’t be much in the reports yet – he’d have to wait to get details – but license plates would be in the system already. That would give him plenty to start with. “Alright, well if I bribe you with a sandwich, is it alright if I hang out in my dad’s office and mooch off the wifi? It keeps dipping out at our house.”

Deputy Mitchell narrowed her eyes at the bag in his hand. “What kind of sandwich?”

* * *

  
  


“So, then I told him that I didn’t think the time loop was about us at all,” Derek said, eyes scanning the road as they rolled up to a stop sign. “You know, he pretty much has knowledge of the future, so maybe there’s something he’s supposed to stop from happening. And he liked that idea and left.”

Alan sighed. “I mean, it was a good thought,” he conceded, “but I don’t think it really fits the spirit of the spell he cast.”

Derek flicked on his turn signal as he drove them out of the downtown area. “And you really think it was this screwed up hieroglyph that did it?”

“I’m almost positive,” Alan agreed. “The real question is, when did he trigger it? He didn’t tell you anything about performing a spell?”

“He barely mentioned that he had been to the clinic,” Derek sighed. “He didn’t seem to think it was important.” He frowned out the windshield, quiet for a long moment as he drove. Then he turned and looked at Alan, brow creased. “You said you think he needs to learn a lesson, and that’s sort of what Stiles was thinking before.”

“Based on a Bill Murray movie,” Alan commented with a wry smile.

Derek snorted and looked ahead again. “Still. It means he was probably more on the right track before I said anything.” They pulled up to the Stilinski house, but the driveway was, perhaps predictably, empty.

Leave it to Derek to find a way to blame this on himself. “At least you got him thinking about different possibilities,” Alan said. “Who knows how long he would have fixated on your relationship.”

“So if it’s not that, what lesson do _you_ think he’s supposed to be learning?” Derek asked.

Alan drummed his fingers on the car door. “Whatever it is, let’s hope it’s nothing too complicated.”

* * *

  
  


“Come on, come on,” Stiles muttered at the computer. The page loaded at last, and he frantically began scribbling down the information given on the last license plate.

_Gina Weber_

A car door slammed outside, and he swore, wrote faster so that the letters ran together in a barely legible mangle.

_42S161 Parkside Ln_

The door outside opened, and Stiles quickly closed out of the window, tucking his page of notes into his sweatshirt pocket as he put the computer to sleep. He rolled back away from the computer, stretching his legs out long. He reached to pull his phone out, but couldn’t find it in his pocket in time before his dad came into view through the window. Instead, Stiles just laced his fingers behind his head, lounging.

The office door opened.

“Oh, hey, Dad!” Stiles greeted, shooting for casual and probably falling somewhere short. “Fancy seeing you here!”

His dad narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?” he asked.

Stiles scoffed. “Now, that is frankly insulting. I am a shining model of good citizenship, I’ll have you know.” He leaned forward, an elbow on the desk. “In fact, I am _such_ a good son, I brought you lunch today.”

“Good,” the sheriff sighed. “I’m starving.”

“I brought you lunch, like, three hours ago,” Stiles added.

His dad looked almost comically crestfallen. “So you ate it?” he asked.

“Actually, Deputy Mitchell ate it.”

Scowling, his dad turned to leave, muttering, “I’ll fire her.”

“Woah, woah!” Stiles laughed, jumping to his feet. He caught his dad by the shoulders. “Come on, no one likes a hangry sheriff. Let’s go get some early dinner, huh? My treat.”

“Your treat,” his dad repeated, suspicious. “Are you sure you didn’t do anything?”

Stiles scoffed again. “No, I just know that you’d go home and eat, like, pizza rolls or something.”

“I’m an adult, and –”

“–and you can eat any kind of rolls you want. Got it. But don’t you want a burrito instead?”

His dad glared at him but muttered a grudging, “Yes.”

* * *

  
  


“The deputy said he was here earlier, but left,” Scott said.

“God damn it,” Alan muttered, and Scott gave a scandalized gasp through the phone. Alan chuckled. “Sorry, Scott. Anyway, why don’t you come on back to the clinic? I think it’s fair to say that finding him today is a bust. We need to figure out a new strategy.”

He hung up and looked over at Derek, who had taken the seat at his desk while Alan sat on the couch and put his foot up. “No plane crashes,” Derek said, glaring at the computer screen. “No bombings, no freak weather events. No bank robberies.” He sat back, holding his hands out in exasperation. “It’s the most harmless day in the world, apparently.”

“Have you checked local news?” Alan asked. “If he was at the sheriff’s station, he was probably asking about things happening nearby.”

Derek shook his head. “Local news posts too slowly. It wouldn’t be up until tomorrow at the earliest.”

Tomorrow. What a concept. Alan scrubbed a hand over his face.

* * *

  
  


“So this accident,” Stiles prompted, digging a chip into his salsa.

His dad groaned, looking away and leaning back in his seat. When Stiles raised an eyebrow at him, he just said, “Sorry, kiddo. Just not really in the mood to talk about work today.”

“It was a bad one?” Stiles guessed.

A nod.

“Did anyone die?”

The sheriff stared out the window next to their booth, and he looked so, so tired. How had Stiles not noticed how tired he had looked on the first day? “A young woman,” he conceded. “Gina. A little younger than you.”

Those always hit him the hardest, Stiles knew. Kids his own age. He knew his dad didn’t want to talk about it, knew it would only make things feel more raw. But he needed to know. “What happened?”

“Hard to say for sure.” His dad picked up one of his tacos, carefully pinching the tortilla around the meat. He took a bite before continuing. “She drifted over the line into the left lane. A semi was passing her, hit the driver’s side full-on. Her mom said she had pulled an all-nighter, so we’re thinking she fell asleep at the wheel.”

“That’s horrible,” Stiles said, quiet. He reached for his burrito, bit in.

They ate in silence.

* * *

  
  


“An actor from the ‘50s was found dead in his San Francisco home, but they don’t say what he died of,” Scott read.

“Add it to the list,” Alan sighed.

Derek spoke up. “It’s probably time to stop adding to the list,” he said. Alan lifted an eyebrow at him, and Derek pointed to the clock on the wall. Eleven o’clock. “You have to memorize all of this,” he reminded him. “The list won’t be there when you wake up.”

“Right,” he agreed. Alan got up and limped over to the list they had written up, Scott and Derek’s handwriting sprawling across the surface of the whiteboard. His eyes scanned over the names, places, incidents. All of the things that Stiles could be trying to stop. “I want to thank you both for helping me with this,” he said. Thinking about how, in just an hour, he would wake up in his bed and the two of them would forget everything, Alan felt an unexpected pang of loneliness.

“Of course,” Scott said. “And you come to my place first thing tomorrow, okay? Text Stiles before you even explain anything, and maybe we can catch him.”

“I will,” Alan agreed.

* * *

  
  


_Ding._

_Ding._

_Ding. Ding. Ding._

_Stiles sucked in a harsh breath as he startled awake. He groped for his phone on the nightstand, cleared his notifications, and stared blearily at the screen._

_Lydia: Stiles  
Lydia: Wake up  
Lydia: This is your reminder  
Lydia: That you swore you wouldn’t fuck up your sleep schedule this summer  
Lydia: Now WAKE UP_

_To Lydia: I’m up thanks_

Stiles rolled out of bed, got dressed, and went straight to his car. Gina Weber. 42S161 Parkside Lane. Today, he was going to save her life.

Gina’s house was clear on the other side of town, twenty-five minutes away with morning traffic. He’d driven to it the night before, to make sure he wouldn’t get turned around this morning. Stiles just needed to get there in time to get her to stay home today.

* * *

Alan woke to the sound of a lawnmower right outside his bedroom window.

He got dressed, then limped out to his car and drove to Scott’s house.

“Alan,” Melissa greeted, smiling. The smile immediately dropped into something quietly restrained. “Scott wasn’t supposed to be at work this morning, was he?”

“He wasn’t. Actually, I need to use your phone. Rather urgently. Mine is broken. I assume you have Stiles’s number?”

“Of course,” she agreed, holding the door open. “Come on in – oh, what happened to your foot?”

“I’ll explain later,” he assured her. “The phone?”

“Right.” Melissa darted into the kitchen and came back with her cell phone. She unlocked it, pulled up Stiles’s contact, and held the phone out to him.

Alan pressed the call button. The phone rang.

“Hey, this is Stiles,” his voice said through the phone. “Please don’t leave me a message. I’ll never be able to get into this stupid voicemail again. Just send me a text like a normal human.”

Alan lowered the phone from his ear. He held it back out to Melissa and shook his head. He should have known better than to get his hopes up.

“Can you wake Scott, please?” he asked.

* * *

  
  


Stiles turned onto Parkside Lane a little before eight thirty, and pulled into the Webers' driveway. It was a modestly sized house, a one-story brick ranch with sparse landscaping. He ran up the driveway and rang the doorbell. Twice.

Just as he was starting to worry that no one would notice, the door opened to reveal a middle-aged woman, hair starting to gray at the temples. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“Hi. You don’t know me, but I really need to talk to Gina,” he told her quickly.

The woman, presumably Gina’s mother, shook her head. “I’m sorry, you just missed her. Do you go to school with her? Don’t you have her number?”

Shit. She was on the road. Stiles hadn’t figured out a smooth way to ask about the exact time of the crash, but he had found out that Gina was a student at Beacon Community College. “I, uh, I’m really sorry to bother you,” Stiles told her, already backing down the walkway toward his Jeep. “I’ll catch her at school. Thanks!” He waved, then ran the rest of the way, practically launching himself into his car.

Fuck, what was the fastest way from here to the interstate? He had forgotten his phone on his bed at home in his hurry, and he didn’t drive this part of town very often. Stiles sped through the streets until he got to a major road that he knew. He blew a red light, his tires screeching as he turned onto the ramp for the interstate. He knew the mile marker, at least.

Stiles wove through traffic, horns honking at him in indignation as he whipped by, cutting people off and going onto the shoulder a few times. It was honestly a miracle that _he_ didn’t cause an accident, but what was taking a chance on that when he _knew_ someone was about to die ahead?

Then, through the sea of cars, he spotted her little red Jetta, recognized the first three digits of the license plate. As he sped toward her in the left lane, he saw her weave just a little ways over the line. Stiles passed the semi that was supposed to kill her just before it came out into the left lane after him.

The Jetta drifted over again. Fuck. Fuck!

Stiles did the only thing he could think of to stop her from crossing the line: he put his car directly next to hers and let her swerve into the Jeep.

The cars hit harder than he had expected, flinging the Jeep sideways. One second he was facing the median, the next the semi was blaring its horn. Stiles looked out his driver’s side window just in time to see the semi barreling straight at him.

* * *

  
  


_Ding._

_Ding._

_Ding. Ding. Ding._


	4. Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the situation escalates, Stiles and Deaton finally come together to solve the time loop.

Alan woke to the sound of a lawnmower right outside his bedroom window.

An hour later, he sat in the McCalls’ living room, a cup of coffee in his hands, saying, “And now, to make matters worse, I think Stiles is dying.”

“ _What!_ ” Scott and Melissa shouted in unison.

Alan sighed. “No, I mean – ”

“Why wouldn’t you start with that?” Scott demanded.

“What are you basing this on?” Melissa cut in at the same time.

Holding up a hand, he explained, “That came out wrong. I don’t mean he’s dying as a general – not over _all_ of the loops. But I think he’s died in a few of the loops. They’ve started over early, and that’s the only explanation I can think of.”

They both stared at him for a long moment. Finally, Melissa said, “So if one of you dies in the time loop, it just starts over again for both of you?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Alan admitted, “but it’s the best theory I’ve got.”

Scott was frowning at the carpet. “What time is it happening?”

“Usually, it’s in the morning, before nine.”

“ _Usually_?” Melissa echoed. “How many times has this happened?”

“Yesterday was five. Five in the last eight days.”

“Jeez, Stiles,” Scott sighed. “It’s not always at the same time, though?”

“The third time it was a little after nine. Yesterday, it was almost noon.” Deaton drained the last of his coffee. “The third time, I’d had a chance to get here first, so I know you weren’t with him at least that time. Yesterday, I had managed to track down Derek.”

“And you still haven’t been able to find Stiles even once?”

Deaton gritted his teeth and shook his head. “No. I have no idea what he’s gotten himself into, but it has _got_ to stop.”

* * *

  
  


“Oh fuck, don’t stop, don’t stop,” Stiles pleaded, pressing his face into the side of Derek’s neck. He arched his back so their chests were pressed together. Derek’s fingers were doing wicked things inside of him, curling and flicking in a tease that always got Stiles keyed up, desperate for more.

“Are you ready for me?” Derek growled against his ear.

Stiles nodded quickly. “Yeah. Yeah I’m – ” His words cut off in a gasp as Derek’s fingers withdrew. He heard Derek slicking himself up.

Stiles pushed himself up onto shaky arms, braced on the wood on either side of Derek’s head. The kitchen table was probably not designed for these types of activities – no, okay, it was _definitely_ not designed for this – but it had been nearby, and Derek had been shirtless, and Stiles _died_ yesterday. _Slowly_. If he wanted to fuck on the table, he damn well deserved it.

Derek held his cock steady, pressing the tip to Stiles’s entrance as Stiles sat up and sank himself down onto it, mouth falling open as he reveled in the stretch and fullness. God, how long had it been since he’d gotten properly fucked? As far as his body was concerned, physically, it had only been a few days. By time loop standards? Weeks.

Below him, Derek chuckled. “You look like you’re having a religious experience.”

“I am,” Stiles grunted, sinking a little further down. “Let me worship in peace.” He lifted up and rocked back down, finding a comfortable rhythm before he started to shift back for a better angle. Derek’s hands wrapped around his hips, holding him steady and helping him lift up. Stiles ended up bent backward, hands braced on Derek’s thighs as he rode him, hips rolling in quick, greedy little movements that had them both groaning and short of breath.

“Stiles, _fuck_ ,” Derek breathed. One of his hands slid further back, cupping Stiles’s ass so that his fingers slid between his cheeks, pressing against his rim where they were connected.

The touch sent a jolt through him, and Stiles picked up the pace. His thighs strained with the movements, and the table creaked precariously below them. “Fuck, touch me, Derek,” he pleaded. “Please, I need to come.”

A hand wrapped around him almost at once, tight and firm and just enough to push him over the edge. He stilled, shaking through it. Below him, Derek shifted, planting his heels on the edge of the table so he could fuck up into Stile, chasing his own release.

The table groaned.

Derek groaned.

Derek’s hips lifted in one more quick, sharp thrust as he came.

The table collapsed.

They stared at each other, Derek wide-eyed in shock and Stiles cringing. His knees smarted from the impact, and he’d managed to bite his tongue. Not to mention the down-there situation, which was more of a matter of sudden panic than actual injury.

“You okay?” Derek asked, carefully lifting Stiles off of his cock.

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. “I bit my tongue, that’s the blood.” Derek no doubt smelled it and was having the same panicked thoughts that had raced through Stiles’s head in the immediate seconds after impact.

Pacified, Derek looked around them. The table had buckled in the direction of their feet, so two legs were on the ground above Derek’s head. The wood had actually splintered on one. “Fuck. I told you this thing wasn’t sturdy enough. I’m gonna have to get a new one.”

Stiles flopped onto his side in the narrow space between Derek and the edge of the table. “Don’t bother. It’ll be fine again tomorrow.”

“What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?”

* * *

  
  


“Beer cheddar soup and a turkey sandwich,” the waitress said as she set a plate in front of Scott, “and the autumn salad for you, sir. Can I get you boys anything else?”

Alan smiled up at her. “No, thank you, Alice.”

Scott frowned, waiting until the waitress left to say, “She wasn’t wearing a name tag. Do you know her?”

Alan lifted a shoulder as he dug into his meal. “She forgot her name tag at home. She thinks one of her kids was playing with it and took it out of her purse.”

“You’ve eaten here before,” Scott realized. “In another version of today.” He tore off a bit of his sandwich, stirred it into his soup. “How many times have you done the day over?” he asked.

Alan huffed a noisy breath. “Fifteen.”

Scott tipped his head to the side, a soft expression on his face. “Have you tried taking a day off?” he asked. “Fifteen days without a break is a lot, especially when you’re this stressed.”

“I have to find Stiles so we can stop this.”

“It’s not like you don’t have all the time in the world,” Scott laughed. He glanced down at Deaton’s plate. “And, hey, what’s with the health food? There are literally no consequences for anything you eat today. Order a piece of pie or something.”

In the years that Alan had known Scott, he had always been impressed by his protege’s persistent kindness. Even when he was in high school and wrapped up in the same self-doubt and self-obsession that every adolescent went through in their formative years, he had always made time to worry about the people around him.

Smiling, Alan nodded. “You know, I think I will.”

* * *

  
  


“And yesterday you died _again_?” Derek asked.

Stiles lay sprawled across his boyfriend’s chest, the two of them snuggled on the couch. “Yeah, and it was the worst one yet. I was unconscious for a lot of it, but I woke up a few times at the hospital. There were doctors hovering over me. You and my dad were there freaking out. _Everything_ hurt. I couldn’t even really tell what was wrong it was so bad.”

A hand cupped under his chin, tilting his face up so their eyes met. Derek looked horrified. “Stiles, you can’t keep doing this. It’s dangerous.”

“I mean, I’m fine today,” Stiles insisted.

“How do you even know the crash is the thing you’re supposed to fix?”

“I don’t. I just...” Stiles huffed and hugged his arms a little tighter around Derek’s middle. “ _You’re_ the one that told me to start thinking bigger picture. What’s bigger than saving someone’s life? I just feel like… like, if I can just get it right, if I can just save her, save everyone else, then...” He made a frustrated noise. “But I _can’t_. The three times I lived to find out how it went, she still died. Twice I ended up in the hospital, and one time I ended up arrested and getting blamed for the whole thing.” Stiles played with Derek’s chest hair. “I can’t give up, though.”

Derek’s fingers smoothed through his hair, and it settled him a little. “So what’s today, then?” Derek asked, gentle.

“I just needed a break,” Stiles admitted. “I just… I mean, she’s already dead today. And I feel _awful_ about it, but I just needed a day to...”

“Okay,” Derek said. He pulled Stiles up, pressing their lips together. “It’s okay to need a break, Stiles.”

Stiles sighed. “I’m sorry. I know this is already a tough day for you.”

“Well, now it’s a tough day for both of us,” Derek replied with a sad sort of lopsided smile. “How about we go get in an _actual_ bed and just spend the rest of the day there, hm?”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. He pecked his lips onto the tip of Derek’s nose, his chin, then his lips. “Yeah, that sounds perfect.”

* * *

  
  


Alan and Scott went to the movies.

“You know, I’m actually surprised at how much I liked it,” Scott said. “I sort of thought it would just be one of those Oscar-grab kind of artsy movies, but it was funny.”

“They did a great job with the script adaptation,” Alan agreed, eyes scanning the intersection as he slowed at a stop sign. The radio was playing low, and when the song ended, it went to commercials.

“Mind if I change it?” Scott asked.

Alan waved a permissive hand, and listened as the stations scanned through. Latin, R&B, commercials. “...eleven cars involved in the pile-up...” said a news reporter, and then an alternative rock station.

“Wait, go back,” Alan said, glancing down at the radio, frowning.

“...one casualty, whose identity has not yet been released,” the reporter said. “Authorities believe the driver lost consciousness while driving, causing the car to drift over the median.”

He pulled the car off onto a side street and parked. “I caught this report yesterday,” Alan explained. “There were three casualties, fifteen cars.”

“You think this is it?” Scott asked, sitting up taller in his seat. “You think this is Stiles’s big mission?”

“It would make sense,” Alan agreed. “The accident happened this morning, near enough that he could have gotten there. If he was involved in the crash, that would explain the early restarts.”

Scott was grinning. “Holy shit!” His grin dropped suddenly. “I mean – sorry!”

Alan laughed, feeling lighter than he had in a long while. “Scott, you can swear all you want around me from now on, you got it?”

The grin returned. “Got it.”

* * *

  
  


_Ding._

_Ding._

_Ding. Ding. Ding._

Stiles didn’t even bother looking at his phone, just rolled out of bed and started to pull his clothes on. Yesterday had been a good distraction, a necessary break, but today he was back on-mission.

He drove onto the interstate, seat belt securely fastened. He had decided on a new tactic this morning. Stiles knew exactly which mile marker Gina started to nod off at, had seen her swerving through the lanes. If he could cause a disturbance _before_ that point, maybe it would make her perk up a bit, or slow down at the very least.

Of course, he only knew one good way to cause a disturbance on an interstate highway.

Stiles watched the markers as they flew by, then darted out into the passing lane, speeding up as he passed around a Honda in the right lane, got right in front of them, and then slammed on the brakes. The Honda plowed into the back of the Jeep, sending Stiles flying forward into the airbags as they exploded forward.

His heart hammered in his chest, but he was okay. He was alive. His chest ached from the air bags, and his ears were ringing, but Stiles was _alive_. With shaky hands, he pushed back the air bags, put the car into park and turned off the engine.

Cars were still passing on the driver side, honking and rubbernecking. Stiles unbuckled his seat belt and slid across to the passenger side to get out. The airbags had gone off in the Honda, too, and the front end was completely crushed under the car. A woman climbed out of the passenger side.

“Are you okay?” Stiles called.

“Are you crazy!” the woman yelled. “You stopped in the middle of the highway!”

“I’m really sorry,” he said, stumbling a little as he came toward her. “I’m really – is everyone okay?”

A man got out of the driver’s side, staying close to the car as he walked around it. “We’re alright. I’m calling 911.”

Another car pulled up behind the Honda. Stiles blinked in confusion as _Dr. Deaton_ , of all people, climbed out and hobbled onto the shoulder, waving his arms over his head. “Stiles!” he yelled. “Stiles, I know everything!”

Stiles’s mouth dropped open in shock. How in the hell could Deaton know? Unless…

Just then, a car whipped around the back of Deaton’s, driving onto the shoulder, and completely mowed Deaton over.

* * *

  
  


Alan woke to the sound of a lawnmower right outside his bedroom window.

He stayed in bed for long minutes, trying to decide what was the best way to approach the situation now that Sties, presumably, knew that he was involved. Stiles still might not remember that his phone was broken, which meant that they would have to connect in person first. So should he wait for Stiles to find him or go out looking for Stiles and risk missing him again?

Alan sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He should probably at least go to the clinic. He wasn’t sure if Stiles even knew where his house was.

The shock and pain of being hit by the car lingered in the back of his mind as he got dressed and limped down the stairs. Alan was on the bottom stair when a knock sounded on the door.

When Alan opened the door, he found Stiles on his front stoop, hastily dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, shoes not even tied. His hair stuck up at angles almost as wild as his eyes. “What do you know about time loops?” he asked.

“More than I’d like to,” Alan answered, lips curling into a smile. “Come on inside.”

* * *

  
  


Deaton has known this _whole time_. Stiles had never felt like such an idiot in his life – and there was plenty of competition! Of _course_ it had to do with the spell, which he had completely forgotten about in the chaos of the time loop.

Stiles groaned as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and scrubbed his hands over his hair. “I can’t believe… I didn’t even _think_ about it.”

“Why would you?” Deaton set coffee cups on the table and took a seat. “You didn’t think you had actually done anything with the spell.”

“I didn’t!” Stiles agreed. “I never performed it! I just got the ingredients and went home.” He slumped back in his chair. “So this is all my fault? I did some weird intent stuff on accident, worrying about my stupid fight with Derek around a messed up hieroglyph?”

Deaton sighed. “Actually… I think it might have been me that set it off.”

Stiles’s head snapped up, brows furrowed. He took his coffee and sipped, waiting.

“Remember at the clinic, when I said I wished you would be more considerate?” Deaton said, picking up his own cup. “I was looking at your drawings and touching the herb mix when I said it.”

Stiles lifted an eyebrow. “And you think _that_ was enough to set off a whole goddamn time loop?”

“Not on its own,” Deaton agreed, “but, to be honest, I’d had a really horrible couple of days. My leg hurt, I was out four hundred bucks for a new phone, and suddenly I had you in my clinic, half an hour late, complaining about your own day without so much as a ‘how are you.’” Deaton shrugged a shoulder. “I was pretty pissed off at you.”

He looked so calm as he said it. Stiles stared at him, disbelieving. “ _That’s_ what it looks like when you’re pissed off!?” he asked, incredulous. “Are you a fricking Vulcan or something? Ever heard of a facial expression or, I don’t know, _modulating the tone of your voice_?”

Deaton laughed into his coffee, shoulders shaking quietly.

“Sorry,” Stiles said quickly. “Probably not helping the ‘you being pissed at me’ thing.”

“It’s fine,” Deaton said quickly. “Honestly, it’s not an unjustified criticism. If I had just come out and told you that you were being a little shit, we probably could have avoided all of this.”

“Dr. Deaton!” Stiles gasped. “Language!”

This time, Deaton laughed hard enough that he had to set down his coffee. “I don’t know why you boys think I care about swearing,” he chuckled.

Stiles supposed he had always seen Deaton as such a _grown up_ , someone existing on a separate sort of plane. Here, sitting in his house, drinking his coffee like they were old friends… well, it felt nice. Weird, but nice. Deaton’s house was cozy, lots of old furniture and bookshelves that made the space feel smaller than it probably was. The breakfast nook, where they had settled for coffee, had shelves surrounding it, loaded down with jars and boxes of tea. There were dirty dishes in the sink and expired coupons stuck to the refrigerator.

“Okay, so how do we break the loop?”

Deaton picked up his coffee again. “Well, I’m not exactly sure. My wish was that you would be more considerate.”

“So, what, I should wait on you hand and foot today?” Stiles asked, but it was a friendly sort of tease. Then, more seriously, he added. “I mean… I risked my life to save someone, like… a lot of times now. I even died doing it. And I redid the day with Scott and Derek, like, _perfectly_.”

Deaton turned to look out the window. One of his neighbors was outside, trimming the shrubs against their fence. “Maybe you’re thinking too big. It sounds like the original day was one where you made too many commitments, and that was a challenge for you.” He drummed his fingers on the side of his cup. “And maybe I have to see proof that you’ve learned, since I started the spell.”

Stiles smirked. “First I was thinking too small, now I’m thinking too big.”

Deaton nodded. “I think the best approach would be for you to try to redo the first day, but just… make more considerate choices. Take care of all of the commitments you made, as best as you can, and then come to the clinic at the time you were supposed to on the original day. I’ve got some ideas about nullifying spells we can do, so we can try those, too.”

It sounded easy enough, but one thing caught at his chest. “What about Gina?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The girl that dies in the crash.” He glanced at his phone. “Died. She’s dead already.”

Deaton frowned. “I’m sorry. I think if this was something you were able to stop, you would have done it by now, unfortunately. Some things… some things just have to happen.”

Stilesstared at the time as it rolled over into the next minute. Scott was probably already on his way to Stiles’s house. “You think I even have time today?” he asked.

“You know, I have a better idea for today,” Deaton told him.

Stiles lifted an eyebrow.

“We, hopefully, have one day of no consequences left,” Deaton pointed out. He smirked. “How about we go get some pie?”

* * *

  
  


Alan woke to the sound of a lawnmower right outside his bedroom window. He smiled.

He and Stiles had, indeed, made the best of their last day together. They ate too much pie, then went on a completely self-indulgent day on the town, probably coming damn close to maxing out Alan’s credit card.

“Man, we can really do anything,” Stiles had realized wonderingly over some heinously overpriced lattes. “When I get home, I’m gonna get the most expensive movie rental on Amazon.”

Alan had nodded. “I think I’m going to tell my obnoxious neighbor to shove it,” he decided.

“Deaton!” Stiles laughed. Then he shook his head, “You know, you really could just… let people now what you think more often. Even if it’s not a time loop. You can tell me when I’m being a douchenozzle.”

Comfortable in his bed, Alan listened to the roar of the lawnmower. He got up, limped to the window, and pushed it open. “Bill!” he called over the din. He had to shout it twice before Bill looked up at him. The drone of the motor quieted. “It’s eight in the damn morning!” Alan yelled.

He almost wished he could have gotten a picture of the startled look on Bill’s face. Bill waved. “Sorry, Alan! I can stop if you’re sleeping.”

“I’m up now,” Alan said, “but in the future, I wouldn’t mind sleeping in.”

He took his time getting ready, so he was only in his bathrobe when there was a knock on his door. It took him a while to get down the stairs. Stiles stood outside again, as mussed as he had been the day before, hands behind his back. “What are you doing here?” Alan asked. “I thought this was your do-over day.”

“It is,” Stiles agreed. He thrust a small box in front of him, holding it out in offering. A cellphone. “Mason works part-time at the Verizon store,” he explained. “I told him they were making you wait two days, so he went in and got you an upgrade for the newer model. They had those on the shelf.”

Alan took the phone, smiling down at it. “Thank you, Stiles,” he said. Then, as earnestly as he’d ever said anything, told him, “You’re going to do really well today.”

“I know!” Stiles gave a big, goofy wave as he backed away from the door and almost tripped down the stairs. “I’ll see you later!”

* * *

  
  


“Stiles?” Scott croaked, still groggy. “Did I oversleep?”

“No, buddy, you’re good,” Stiles insisted as he climbed into the Jeep. “You sleep as long as you want, yeah. Listen, though, I’m an idiot and I totally forgot that it’s the anniversary of the fire today.”

Scott made a confused noise as the information filtered through his sleep-fog, then said, “Oh, shit. Yeah, you need to raincheck on today?”

“Yeah, I gotta. Sorry, man. I just don’t want to leave him alone today.”

“It’s cool. We can go tomorrow or like… honestly, whenever.” Scott yawned, noisy. “It’s summer, right? Plenty of time.”

“All the time in the world,” Stiles agreed. He started the engine, phone cradled between his chin and his shoulder. “You’re the best, dude. And, yeah, let’s go tomorrow.”

“Awesome. I’m gonna go back to sleep now.”

“Sweet dreams, buddy.”

From Deaton’s, Stiles drove over to Derek’s. He walked up to the loft empty-handed except for his key, and let himself in. Derek was hanging from his knees on a chin-up bar, doing crunches, a sheen of sweat on his bare chest.

“Wait! Stay there!” Stiles yelped, sliding the door shut behind him. He rushed over as Derek frowned at him upside-down. “I wanna do the Spiderman kiss,” Stiles explained. He caught Derek’s face in both hands, then planted a big ol’ smooch on his lips. He pulled back, face twisted up in consideration. “It’s a little weird,” he noted.

“You’re a dork,” Derek told him. He snorted, then grabbed Stiles by the back of the head to pull him in for another. It was less weird the second time.

They spent the day together, cuddled up on the couch, watching movies. Derek talked a little bit about what the house had been like before the fire, how him and his cousins would play hide-and-seek and get into the secret nooks and crannies of the house they weren’t supposed to know about.

* * *

  
  


Around four, Alan’s new phone buzzed as a text came in. He opened it and saw a picture of Derek in the Stilinski kitchen, carefully laying lasagna noodles out over a casserole dish. The caption said, _helping me make dinner for my dad_.

* * *

  
  


While Derek finished up the garlic bread, his dad chatting with him while he grabbed them beers, Stiles slipped out the back door with his phone. He held it to his ear.

“ _Beacon Flower Shop, how can I help you?_ ”

Stiles kept his voice low. “Yeah, I’d like to have some flowers delivered. 42 South 161 Parkside Lane, Beacon Hills.”

“ _Sure, what’s the occasion?_ ”

“Her daughter just died. I don’t know… what kind of flowers do you send for that?”

He took the florist’s advice, sent a bouquet of white lilies and purple irises. No card. Stiles couldn’t think of what he could possibly say.

Just as he was about to hang up, he asked, “Hey, you don’t have like… a buy-one-get-one deal or something, do you?”

* * *

  
  


At five minutes to seven, the chime over the door to the clinic went off, followed by Stiles calling, “Hey, doc!” A moment later, his head poked around the doorway to Alan’s office. “You eat yet? I brought leftover lasagna.” He held up a tupperware in demonstration.

Alan smiled up from his desk. It looked like Stiles had taken his day of conscientiousness more seriously than he had expected, and it even looked like he was enjoying it. “That sounds great. Thanks, Stiles. And thanks again for the phone.”

“You got it all set up yet?”

“Just about,” Alan agreed. “It looks like your day went as planned. Scott came by earlier to help me out. He said you rescheduled for tomorrow.”

Stiles set the lasagna on the desk and dropped into one of the chairs on the other side. “Yeah, he was really cool about it. Derek and I hung out, and then dinner with my dad since he had such a crummy morning cleaning up the accident.”

“And here you are, right on time.”

“Hey, gotta be considerate of other people’s time,” Stiles replied seriously. “So what did you do today?”

“This.” Alan flipped open a notebook and slid it across the desk. “The nullifying spell.” It included a lot of the same ingredients that Stiles had used the day before. He had to look up the hieroglyphs that would hopefully counteract the misprint from the first day, checking and double-checking them for accuracy. “I think if we do a standard cleansing ritual with them and both focus our will on ending the time loop, things should go back to normal.”

Stiles insisted on getting most of the ingredients, still obviously paranoid about not being too demanding. He arranged the herbs on the exam table, leaving Deaton to sketch out the hieroglyphs.

“Hey, I learned my lesson about using strange pictographic writing systems,” he insisted.

Alan chuckled. “Alright, fair enough.”

They lit a candle and stood on either side of the little altar they had built, eyes closed.

It had been a good day, probably a thousand times better than the first time through. The phone that Stiles brought him had made his life a whole lot easier. Having Scott around to help at the clinic that morning meant he’d been able to keep his foot up, and it didn’t ache now like it had the day before. Knowing that Stiles had actually learned something, had made a positive change, felt good. Hell, even telling his neighbor off had felt good. Stiles was onto something with this whole ‘tell people how you feel’ thing.

The candle flamed between them. After a moment, Stiles stepped back.

“You think it worked?” he asked.

Alan tipped his head to the side. “I guess we’ll see.” He took a step back, wincing as he caught his foot at a bad ankle.

“Hey, Dr. Deaton?”

Alan smirked. “You can call me Alan, Stiles. We’re both adults.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Stiles looked startled at the suggestion, then pleased. “Alan, what happened to your foot?”

“My ankle,” he answered. “I sprained it falling down the stairs out back yesterday.” He frowned at the phrasing. “I mean… well, you know. The yesterday that happened...”

“God, that sucks that you got stuck with a bum ankle for like _weeks_ more than you needed to,” Stiles said. “Hopefully we broke the spell, huh? You can actually start healing?”

Alan nodded. “You know, I’ve got a good feeling about it.”

* * *

  
  


That night, as he was getting ready, Stiles’s phone started to sing,

_My boyfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble  
(Hey-la-day-la my boyfriend's back)_

He grabbed it quickly, not wanting the noise to wake his dad. “Hey, Der,” he said, voice hushed. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to say goodnight,” Derek said, “and thanks for today. It was exactly what I needed.”

“Of course,” Stiles said. He chewed on his lip. “And, hey, I know that technically we got together a year ago today, but it’s kind of a shitty day for an anniversary, you know?”

There was a pause, then, “Shit. I didn’t even think...”

“It’s fine!” Stiles interrupted, a little louder than he meant to. He sat down on the end of his bed, then continued in a softer tone. “It’s fine. I was thinking maybe we could pick a day next week to be our anniversary.”

“That sounds good,” Derek agreed, and Stiles could hear the smile in his voice. “Are you going to sleep now?”

“I was just about to,” Stiles said. “You wanna talk to me until I do?”

“Sure. Go get comfy.”

And Stiles did.

* * *

  
  


_Ding._

_Ding._

_Ding._

Stiles groaned, whined, and rolled over toward his nightstand to grab his phone. Only it wasn’t there. He turned over and saw it sitting on the other side of his bed. “Shit, I forgot to plug it in,” he muttered to himself as he sat up.

Then his eyes went wide.

“Oh my _God_ , I forgot to plug it in!” he crowed. He unlocked it and opened his messages.

_Lydia: Stiles, wake up  
Lydia: This is your daily reminder that you need to  
Lydia: WAKE UP_

Stiles grinned at his phone and tapped out a quick message.

 _To Lydia_ : _ur a goddess and a good friend_

A moment later, his phone chimed again.

_Lydia: This is the second morning in a row you’ve thanked me for waking you up. Are you sick? Have you been kidnapped Do I need to call someone?_

Stiles cackled madly, flopping back onto his pillows, overcome with relief and joy and amusement. A knock sounded on his door.

“Stiles? You okay in there, kiddo?”

Practically jumping out of bed, Stiles rushed to the door and yanked it open. “Good morning, Dad! How are you? Did you make coffee yet? I’ll make coffee!” He rushed past him for the stairs, leaving his dad in the hallway, blinking in confusion.

* * *

  
  


Alan slept in until nearly ten. It was the best sleep he’d gotten in years. When he finally got downstairs, there was a bouquet of bright yellow daisies on his front stoop. The tag said,

_As lessons go, this one was a little excessive. But thanks for teaching me anyway._

_Get well soon,  
Stiles_

**Author's Note:**

> I love it when people comment along, so please don't feel shy! Also, come visit me on [tumblr](https://luulapants.tumblr.com/) to read teasers and WIP snippets as I write.


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